On Thursday evening, while unconfirmed reports spread concerning an incident at Brown University, the network's Kaitlan Collins used social media, pointing out the conflicting information and directing people to her channel's 9pm newscast.
Although the network is hardly a perfect news source, her statement rang true for a lot of people. It remains one of the outlets where one can locate fact-based and largely reliable reporting – especially during fast-moving events such as the one unfolding in the vicinity of a New Hampshire storage facility.
A Vulnerable Position Amid a Corporate Struggle
But CNN, now four and a half decades old, finds itself in a vulnerable situation as two massive media conglomerates vie for ownership of its parent company, Warner Bros Discovery.
Whatever the outcome, the destiny of CNN has been drawn into a major game of business acquisition, rather than as a question of what serves the news-consuming public.
“This is yet another example of the fundamental flaws with roots in decades of policy decisions,” said Victor Pickard, author of “Democracy Without Journalism?” and a media policy professor at the Pennsylvania University.
The conjecture about which company will control Warner Bros Discovery – is it going to be Netflix or Paramount Skydance? – overlooks a broader point.
“It is often framed as a corporate drama with key players as the main characters, but there is scant discussion of the public interest,” Pickard said.
The Complicating Element: Political Influence
The network's predicament is made more complex by Donald Trump’s views about a network he has frequently denounced as perhaps his main “fake news” adversary.
Recall the shouts of “CNN sucks!” at Trump's rallies, his team's disciplinary withdrawal of reporter Jim Acosta’s press credentials, or his sparring with Collins in press briefings.
Trump now says that the network requires new ownership. Many see this as a desire for ownership that will protect him from criticism and scrutiny. That is part of why he seems to come down on the side of Paramount Skydance, which has made a hostile bid.
Trump has reason to favor that suitor more. For one thing, it is run by David Ellison, son of the Trump-friendly Larry Ellison, one of the world’s richest people.
The company, parent of CBS News, also recently placed the right-leaning Bari Weiss, known for her “anti-woke” beliefs, as the editor-in-chief of that historic news network.
A Future of More Instability
Significantly, if Netflix is successful, CNN and other cable outlets would first be carved out into a separate entity. That would be a welcome development to many at the network, but it’s not exactly a guarantee of stability. That setup could set up CNN for another sale. The cycle continues.
In the view of Timothy Wu, a lot of this is against the law, anyway. The well-known analyst of big tech’s dominance recently argued that anti-trust laws should disallow both deals.
“Each proposed deal would be harmful to the country, and both should be contested by regulators,” Wu recently wrote.
The Core Challenge and a Potential Solution
No matter the outcome in this situation, the bigger problem persists.
“The present media landscape is a very system hostile to democracy, but we ought not succumb to a sense of powerlessness,” Pickard emphasized. Government actions – from the 1930s and 1940s – helped to build this hyper-commercialized monster, and different policy decisions can fix it.
Is this likely in an era where the head of the FCC won’t even affirm that the agency is independent? Reform is very unlikely now, but that should not imply it will never happen.
Initiatives that strengthen independent news organizations, bolster local journalism, finance public media, and prevent the accumulation of media power in too few hands are achievable – they are necessary for a functioning democracy.
In the world of media ownership, size does not equal quality. And news organizations such as CNN must not be pawns in the most recent merger game.
